All of Europe in Two Hours

After breakfast we took the metro out to the edge of town to see the Atomium and Mini-Europe.  The Atomium was built for the 1958 World's Fair and is a model of an iron molecule enlarged 165 million times.  It's known as the Eiffel Tower of Brussels and it is pretty amazing.

There were loads of people posing for pictures to show how they could "hold" the structure.  Today they actually had people taking rides down a rip cord from the very top.  Looked like a great thrill.

We took a little break underneath the Atomium.  My little Harrison really seemed to be growing up

After lunch we went to Mini-Europe which is a park that displays 300+ models of structures and sites all throughout Europe.  This place was soooo cool!!!

We got our pictures with the Eiffel Tower.... 

England's Parliament and Big Ben

The Acropolis from Athens

Addison with the Arc de Triomphe in Paris

Basilica Sacre Coeur in Paris

I'm holding up the Leaning Tower of Pisa that is just a bit taller than me

Addie you are soooo funny!!! What a great day to see so much.  Our goal is to see as much of Europe as we can while we live in the UK and this was a great motivator for us to see the real things.

Easter Bunny Visits Brussels

Eventhough Addie and Harry were in Belgium overnight in a hotel, the Easter Bunny didn't forget them.  He left a note letting them know that Kevin and I had visited with him and asked to drop off his goodies for them at our house next Sunday.  What a cool bunny!!!  He did happen to bring a few Easter eggs with him and hid them around our hotel room.

Addison woke up with an egg right next to her.  She was so excited and hopped out of her cot to look for more. (Yes, she still gets to sleep with her passy...she does a great job of chucking it in her bed when she wakes up).

Now in Belgium because there is so much good chocolate to buy in the stores, the Easter bunny decided to bring Addison some healthier snacks like pretzels and raisins to balance things out.

We treated ourselves to waffels and tarts this morning from a little cafe just down from our "22 Euro Club Sandwich" place.  We found a quaint little park with a big fountain, statues, and loads of pretty trees to enjoy the morning.

I had this most amazing raspberry tart...it was chilled and tangy tart.  The cafe had a cookbook available with recipes for all the goodies they had but off course it was in French... darn.

In Brugge

Our Eurostar tickets entitled us to travel on to any other Belgium city within 24 hours of arriving in Brussels, so we headed to the infamous Brugge.  The quick one hour train ride was wonderful.  In fact it was so great that we thought we would accidentally sit on the first class car.  Honestly, we didn't know that we had until the conductor came through to punch our tickets.  We thought the seats seemed pretty nice and the car was awfully quite...sorry Mr. Conductor.

Brugge is a beautiful city of old filled with lovely buildings with amazing canals running through it.  It is sometimes known as the "Venice of the North."   This area seemed to be our favorite because it was quite and not as congested as the rest of the city that day.  The bridge behind Kevin leads into the Begijnhof which is a sanctuary for women to serve as nuns, but they really aren't fully nuns because they can leave at any time.

Here I am inside the middle of the Begijnhof with all the beautiful daffodils.  It's really a quaint little community of these white painted attached homes.  There are signs posted all over the place asking you to be quiet.  Well we broke the beautiful silence when I asked Addison not to play so closely to this other little girl walking around because I didn't want here to pass on the "pox"...well I should have thought of that before I drug her all the way there in the first place.  She got pretty upset with me and Kevin had to carry her out kicking and screaming.  The poor little thing...she just wanted a playmate and I told her no after Kevin had said she could get down out of the stroller to play for a while.  I could tell the stress of the week was carrying into our holiday fun.

The most relaxing and enjoyable meal we had on the whole trip happened to be lunch while in Brugge.  We sat outside at this amazing little place and people watched between eating and feeding the kids.  I had this amazing chicken while Kevin ordered a pot of steamed mussels which is a very popular dish in Belgium, especially when they are in season.  Addison again enjoyed a bowl full of French fries...do you see a trend here.

She looks sweet and angelic, but this little girl is very independent and with this pose she looks like she was ready to take over the town.  Addison did love seeing all the ducks and swans that floated in the canal.  Also there were horse drawn buggies moving throughout the town and she loved the "Neigh-neighs" as she calls them.  We tried hopping on one of the horse rides but found out that the starting point was actually in the town square so we headed up that way.

When we got to the Market Square it was a ZOO!!!  It was very, very busy and on top of things there was a huge carnival going on in the middle of things.  The most commanding landmark though is the Belford tower.  This is the infamous tower that Colin Farrel's associate tries tell the "American tourists" that they were crazy to try and climb in the movie "In Bruges" if you've seen it.  We would have loved to climb it ourselves but both kiddos zonked out just as we got to it and the cue was really long so we admired the view from the ground.

The Market Square in Brugge was very colorful with the brightly painted buildings all around.  We had a tough time finding where the horse rides started so we decided that we would opt for a canal ride instead.  

We headed off towards an area called the Burg which is just off the main market square.  Here we visited the Basilica of the Holy Blood which is the holiest of churches in Brugge.  Here there were very moving statues of Christ during his crucifixion and it really moved me.  Kevin and I took some time to reflect on the Easter holiday and lit candles at the church.

We made our way down "Blind Donkey Alley" which is just a very pretty alleyway that leads to the canal and old fish markets.  It was here where we hopped on our canal ride.  It is also where I lost the plastic eye piece on our camera...Kevin warned me several times that it was coming off and being the defiant little me I didn't pay any attention.   Not a horrible loss but my forehead really hurt by the end of the day by banging that thing on my face.

They packed us on the boat like sardines.  Which if it would have just been the two of us, it wouldn't have been that bad, but we were the only ones with two little kids who needed constant attention or they were likely to fly out the boat.  The canal cruise was pretty cool though.  One of the funniest things I remember was this big golden retriever sitting at an open window half asleep just staring out at people as we passed by without a care in the world.

Our little ones always looked so cute when they would both fall asleep in the stroller.  Actually so cute that Kevin and I should have charged people for staring at them and point.  Kevin said that if he could get 5 pence for everytime someone looked or pointed at them and the stroller he'd be a millionaire by the end of our trip.  We do have a pretty unique stroller that not a lot of people have seen and when they see Harry down below they often have to do a double take to see that there is another little one riding underneath.

We ended our day in Brugge with dinner at the place next door to where we had lunch.  Kevin got to taste some of the locally brewed beer called Brugge Zot and he liked it so much that we had to rush to find a few bottles before the shops closed.  We had some amazing pasta dishes as well.  As you can tell, food is a big part about my enjoying a trip or not.  White asparagus was in season and so I got the asparagus and salmon over penne pasta and it was delicious-o!!!  We finally got Addison to eat some spaghetti.  

We headed back to the train station and had to buy tickets back because our 24 hours had run out.  The gentleman at the Brussels train station said it would only cost 8 Euro each to come back, but he was wrong!  It wasn't a big deal in the grand sceme of things that they were 13 Euro each, but I want to know this other guy's source.

Our Trip to Brussels, Belgium

After a stressful week from the onset of chicken pox to our little Addie and Harrison having horrible symptoms of his first tooth coming through, we decided to go ahead and set forth on our adventure to Belgium.  We drove to the train station in Peterborough, then hopped on the fast train down to London and then walked across the street to London's St. Pancreas International Train Station where we took the EuroStar high speed train to Brussels, Belgium.  It was just over a 2 hour ride through southern England, under the English Channel, with a quick stop in Lille, France before we arrived in Belgium.
The kids did great on the train and it really was the most convenient means of travel I think we've done so far.  Our portable DVD player was the perfect trick to make the time go by.   When we got to Brussels, we hopped on the city's metro to take us to our hotel, the Hilton Brussels, yes, it is the first time I have ever stayed at a Hilton.  We had a corner room so we had big windows looking out two directions.  I told Kevin to stay out of the mini bar because I read on TripAdvisor that someone had gotten charged for things for just touching something because they have sensors in the fridge.  We asked them to clear it out for us so we could store some of the kid's fruit and juice in it but they didn't....crazy.
Well by the time we got to our hotel, it was 2:30PM their time but it was only 1:30PM to us and we were starving since I was stupid and forgot to pack us lunches for on the train.  The concierge recommended a spot for us a few blocks from the hotel that could potentially be serving a late lunch.  We finally got settled in with the kids who were pretty fussy and tired of being cramped up and after a pretty rude server gave us the menu, our mouths just dropped when we looked at the menu.  First of all everything was in French...we asked for English menus (because lots of places do have them for us ignorant people), but she just handed us this sheet of paper that listed out a few words in French and then translations into a couple of other languages.  With two kids getting horribly restless we didn't want to mess with translating at the time.  The one thing on the menu that we did recognize was Club Sandwich with salad which was 22Euro ($28US)!!!!!  It was the cheapest main meal on the whole menu!!!!  So as Kevin and I have learned, once you get your kids settled in a place you can't easily get up and leave once you've realized you were going to spend a fortune on just a sandwich.  We decided to split the sandwich and Addison was content with pomme frites (French fries).

After lunch we started our site seeing.  Since it was Easter weekend, all the shops had amazing window displays.  I loved all the chocolate shop displays with the chocolate bunnies, chicks, chocolate covered strawberries and more.  Belgium was definitely a great place to be for Easter sweets.  But there were also some really interesting display from other types of shops.  I thought this bunny looked pretty psychedelic.

As we walked down this really busy street, I was stopped by Vincent VanGough who graciously wanted to have his picture taken with me.  

As we walked on to the end of the street there was a huge crowd all concentrated on the corner and cameras were shooting all over the place.   We had made it to Brussels' most famous landmark, the Mannekin Pis.  Essentially it's a foot tall statue of a little boy peeing.  The original statue can be traced back to the early 1600's, but no one really knows how it came to be or why it has become so popular.  They do have fun with him though because there is a museum in town that houses over 400 different costumes that have been made for the little guy and sporadically he gets dressed up as Santa Claus, Elvis or whatever.

We made our way up to the Grand Place which is know as one of the most beautiful squares in all of Europe and it is truly amazing.  The town hall and King's hall towered high with the most detailed statues and stone carvings decorating it.  The other little buildings were sandwiched together, but each was unique in decoration because each building used to house a special guilds way back when like bakers, sailors, and traders.  

We sat down in the middle of the square and just took it in.  We must have drawn some attention because tourists from Japan came up to us and asked to have their pictures taken with our children because they thought they were so cute.  I didn't realize we stuck out so much.

There was a couple walking around the square that did stand out a little more than we did.  A French film crew was doing a documentary on Gothic couples.  We learned this because the gentleman in the dreads on the left was the director and he was hiding behind our stroller while they were taping so he wouldn't be in the shots they were taking.  The Goth guy actually looked like his eyes were all white...can you say "Marilyn Manson"!!!?? Yikes...

We found some pretty interesting things in Brussels to say the least.  Number one we found that if you get too far away from the main square it can get a little shady.  I wasn't too sure what had happened to this building.  It looked like it has burnt down but then someone put up all these photos on it so it looked like art, but then some really scary homeless guy sat in front of it.

As we walked down a little further to where the old fish market used to be, there were lots of fresh fish serving restaraunts.  Kevin thought this place looked pretty interesting...a walk up seafood bar.

After a long day of travel and walking we headed back to the hotel.  Kevin got the kids all cleaned up while I ventured out to find food for dinner.  After our lunch ordeal we didn't want to subject the kids to another sitdown meal, so about a 1/2 mile from our hotel there was a Pizza Hut.  Kevin was so excited that both of the kids could now actually share the bath tub. The sad thing is that on vacation they don't have much for toys so they shared a water bottle and a toy duck the hotel gave them.

Worst Night Ever -The Chicken Pox Peak

Last night Addison and I probably got about an hour of sleep. The number of her spots have more than doubled and they were big and red now. She felt absolutely miserable because the chicken pox flared up really bad in some sensitive areas. I had tried all the things I knew to help her alleviate the pain...baking soda bath, calamine lotion, cold wash clothes, but Addison wouldn't let me put the cream on or use the wash clothes or let her run around with her diaper off. She knew she was in pain and not feeling good, but just didn't know how to communicate it other than crying and flailing about. I can't imagine how she was feeling and I felt horrible for getting so frustrated with her when she wouldn't let me help her out.

With our trip planned for tomorrow and not knowing what do or think, I got Addie into the GP to see if he would prescribe some antihistamine to help alleviate some of the discomfort. I had previously called the health visitor to see if she thought Addie would be able to go on the trip and she coached me that we may need to tone down our schedule but she should be okay to go if she's feeling alright. One friend who is a nurse said that it would be fine to bring her because they encourage children to exposed when they are young so they can get it over with, just keep her cool and give her Calpol regularly (that is the Children's tylenol here) . All my friends say, "Go ahead and go." The GP told me that she would be fine to go but stressed over and over that she would still be contagious to others for about a week yet.

Am I a bad mother? I feel totally selfish thinking that I am going to drag my child who is sick with the chicken pox on a trip to a foreign country. My friend whose son has the chicken pox right now is staying at home for the next weeks and I'm pondering this. I guess we'll have to see how things go.

What are those Spots???

After visiting with a friend this morning who's son had the chicken pox I weirdly enough started noticing a weird bug bite on Addison's tummy.  And then I saw a couple more on her back.  At first I thought maybe she had gotten a few bug bites after she played in the sand box yesterday, but I called Holli back and asked what chicken pox looked like.  She described exactly what Addie had.  I got her a last minute appointment to see the GP so that he could confirm it.  

I had some mixed emotions.  I was elated that she caught them now before she was in school and that I didn't have to vaccinate her.  In the UK they don't vaccinate for chicken pox because it's not considered a deadly disease.  I'm not sure why we have to vaccinate kids in the US for them because I think we should have chicken pox parties and let the kids get it naturally.   The bad part about the timing of them though was that we are due to go to Belgium on holiday in four days.  We'll see how she does...maybe it won't be that bad....or maybe we will have to cancel.  What a bummer!!!

Kenilworth Castle

Today our family ventured westward to explore Kenilworth Castle.  We made a quick duck into the local Sainsbury's to pick up picnic food and then made our way to the castle grounds.  Kenilworth is another English Heritage site and was built in 1120AD by Robert Dudley.  The interesting thing about this chap is that he really had a thing for Queen Elizabeth I (Henry the VIIIs mother) so he built a huge living quarters for her and her staff to stay in so that he could get her to visit. 

I would have loved having this place's kitchen, it was huge.  This is a spot where a huge cauldron was built into the wall and the cooks would have to climb up these steps so they could stir up the pot.  Addie as always is there to help me out in the kitchen.

Here's me and Harry inside the keep of the castle.  Look how thick these walls are...over 4 meters!!!!  

Kevin was pulling triple duty by carrying Harrison, walking Addie along the castle walls and trying to listen to the audio guide as I snapped a few pictures.

Addie wanted to find out what Dad was listening to..."push the but-tons mommy."

The gatehouse here was built first to allow horses to enter the castle grounds then as residence and now serves as a museum.

Easter Egg Hunt Fun

Today was an absolutely beautiful day.  We headed up to the city centre this morning to do a few errands.  Funny enough I needed to go sock shopping. Now that I stay home and don't wear shoes very much, most of my socks have worn down pretty thin.  We also had to go PJ shopping because my kids are both growing like weeds and I've forced them into their winter jammies long enough.  The weather is warming up so we went to find some fun summery ones to wear.  We ate lunch at our favorite Pizza Express in town.

We had to hurry back home though because we were invited to the Glinton Preschool's Easter Egg Hunt at Arthur Mellows College.  They had loads of fun things for the kids to do.  Addison loved the tunnels, inflatable castle, hula hoops and see saws.  

She got to guess the name of a bunny, pin an egg on a picture to win a sweetie, she decorated a hard boiled egg with stickers and just before she could decorate a biscuit I came in and rocked the boat and forced her outside to  do the Easter egg hunt.  She wasn't too happy with me but once we got out and she found an egg for herself and her brother she forgot about the cookie decorating.  

The funny thing about the Easter Egg Hunt was that Lana (an American friend of mine here) was to originally cut out and laminate 100 eggs for the hunt, but then she suggested to the ladies that they use the plastic eggs.  They had no clue what she was talking about.  Luckily she had bought loads of them in the States and they used them for the hunt.  So funny that something that was so normal to us was such a marvel to the British gals.  You are starting to see the plastic eggs more and more over here but they really aren't the big thing here.

Wow...look at my kiddos!!!  They can actually start playing together now with a little of mommy's help.

My Little Helper

Addison has really been jumping in a lot to "help" mommy.   Today she wanted to help wash dishes.  She pulled over her chair and hopped right in.  After about 30 seconds she got bored with cleaning the dishes when she found out that the sink was like a big tub to play in without getting your whole body wet.

Six Pounds Down...9 to go!!!

Three weeks ago I had a little heart to heart with myself.  I was tired of feeling so down about holding on to my "baby" fat and then gaining a little more on top of that because I continued to feed that depression with loads of cookies and sweets...a vicious circle.  Yes, I know I just had a baby 6 1/2 months ago, but I didn't feel healthy and I was so tired all the time.

Since I am still breast feeding I shouldn't technically go on a diet because that wouldn't be good for Harrison.  So I went online to get ideas on how to lose the weight safely.  They said that it is safe to lose 1-2 pounds a week and you could do this by using up 3500 extra calories each week that was only 500 calories a day.  And to get the 500 calories you could do a little bit of exercise...walking 30 minutes a day, walking up and down stairs, house work...and/or reducing the calories you took in so I could technically stop second servings at dinner, not grab that extra couple of cookies, stop baking sweets to tempt myself to eat them, etc. 

So I sat down and wrote out a plan on simple things I could do and put down a realistic goal.  Since we are going back to the States for my cousin's wedding in July I thought that getting down to my pre-preggie weight by then was a must...because it will be bloody hot in July in Iowa and I don't have any "fat" summer clothes to wear to be blunt!  At that point I had 15 weeks to lose 15 pounds.  

Here are the rules I set for myself:

• Walk 3-4 times a week - doesn't matter how much time or distance
  
• Jog 1-2 times a week - at least 10 - 20 minutes each time
  
• Do 20 reps up and down the stairs
  
• Do 100 sit ups everyday
  
• Drink 8 glasses of water a day
  
• No snacking after dinner
  
• Eat a big breakfast
  
• Limit myself to eating dessert 1x a week (on average)
  
• Focus on eating as many fruits and veggies I can during meals
  
• Mark down every time I eat a "bad" food - sweets, soft drinks, etc. - to remind me that I need to do extra exercise to burn that off
  

I am not really set up to be able to join a gym right now so I have been trying to find creative ways to get meaningful exercise.  I started out with some long walks.  The kids and I walked all the way to Tesco in Werrington which is a 3 mile round trip.  It was a great workout, but gosh that was such a long ways and the kids get a bit antzy sitting that long in the stroller.  So I thought doing a little jog to our village park would be good since our stroller was set up for that.  It was only about 1 1/2 miles round trip with our stop to swing for 20 minutes.  Well after doing that a couple of times, I came to find that somewhere on my route that I was running over some thorns that were big enough to puncture holes in the stroller wheels, so I tried finding a different route.  Then the weather has be completely "English" the past week so it's been hard to bring the kids out when they both started getting runny noses.   I've been relying now on some short walks up to the park when the sun comes out for an hour or so.  Also I have been able to get out on Saturday mornings to run on my own, but I find that I really enjoy running with the kids because they keep me company.

I've done the situps twice now and the 20 reps of stairs in a row once and stopped because it about killed me and then I was sore for three days (pretty pathetic I know).  I will start focusing on just doing the situps soon though because there's a lot of extra skin to tighten up.  I really no excuse for not doing those because after the kids go to bed and I'm just lying there watching TV anyway.  The stairs I will save for rainy days.

The sweets thing was really hard, but honestly after two weeks of tough will power I don't have the craving for them as bad.  When I do get hungry in the afternoon I go for a banana, cheese and crackers, a handful of peanuts or just a big glass of water.  When I do have a sweet it's just one or one bite (it doesn't help when Min makes this AMAZING lime tart and gives me two whole pieces to take home - I had to spread it out over a few days).  I did also pig out on goodies Tuesday night as Min, Sarah and I watched The Bridget Jones' Diary which was quite fitting since she gained enough weight for the movie to be my current weight and complained how hard it was to gain...how horrible for her!

Well this morning I stepped on the scale and I have dropped 6 pounds and I can really tell it.  I have been feeling better and there is something about seeing the little numbers go down that builds up your morale.  The "fat" pants that I bought at Christmas time are now loose and I tried on a pair of my pre-preggie fitting pants (trousers) and I could actually get them buttoned, but they were really tight.

I've got 3 more months to drop at least to my first goal weight to fit back in the summer clothes.  After that my goal is to get back to my pre-preggie weight with Addison (another 10 lbs)  which right before I got pregnant with her I had dropped down to my "high school" weight....ahh the high school or wedding dress weight...I know it is do-able and it just takes time!